SINGAPORE – A company has been stripped of a safety and health award and banned from participating in future editions after lying about its work injury record.

The company had declared that no work accident had occurred on one of its sites in 2023, while two minor injuries had occurred there that year.

The Ministry of Manpower (MOM) defines minor injuries as non-serious injuries accompanied by medical leave or light duty.

Had he reported the injuries, he would not have received the Safety and Health Project Recognition (Sharp) Award, the Workplace Safety and Health (WSH) Board said in a press release published on its website on November 23.

When contacted by The Straits Times, the council declined to name the company, but said a whistleblower had alerted it to the possible falsification of information in its award application.

This led to an investigation and the company was discovered.

The Council administers this award, which recognizes large-scale projects or worksites exhibiting exemplary performance in safety and health and occupational safety and health management systems. There are no monetary prizes.

More than 80 companies won the Sharp Award in 2024.

The company does not have the right to participate in the awards for three years.

“We are committed to maintaining pricing integrity and will investigate all allegations of wrongdoing,” the board said.

The WSH Council also referred the incident to the MOM “to assess whether the company had breached injury reporting laws”.

ST has contacted the ministry for comment.

To be eligible for the award, companies must have had no hazardous incidents on their project or construction site, no serious or fatal injuries, and no violations of WSH and labor standards between January 1, 2023 and December 31, 2023.

Companies with reported minor injuries can still apply, provided they have at least 1.5 million man-hours and their injury rate is less than 25 percent of the industry injury rate.